https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2599-098X
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ABSTRACT
Locally rooted industrial networks pose significant challenges to the sustainable regeneration of industrial land in China. This paper examines the process of rural industrialization in the Shunde District of the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region and its relationships to current regeneration practices from a historical perspective. Drawing on assemblage thinking, the paper traces the four stages of Shunde’s industrial networks assembly process and depicts the ongoing regeneration activities, delving into how heterogeneous entities come together and (re)assemble unique networks attached to the locality over time. The findings show that the assembly and regeneration of industrial networks are subject to diverse interactions between multiple translocal assemblages and Shunde as a place-assemblage. These interactions are conditioned by the distributed agency that emerges from the components of the place-assemblage. Local agency’s enactment of sustainable futures requires a comprehensive understanding of the historical development of local industrial networks and the socio-spatial relationships between heterogeneous entities within or across assemblages to inform and precede interventions such as sustainable regeneration policies and practices.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
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2 Lai et al., “Industrial Land Development in Urban Villages in China,” 185–94; Guo, Xiao, and Yuan, “The Redevelopment of Peri-urban Villages in the Context of Path-Dependent Land Institution Change and its Impact on Chinese Inclusive Urbanization,” 466–75.
3 Zeng, “How Do Special Economic Zones and Industrial Clusters Drive China’s Rapid Development?” 1–53.
4 Knorringa and Nadvi, “Rising Power Clusters and the Challenges of Local and Global Standards,” 55–72.
5 McCarthy, “The Brownfield Dual Land-use Policy Challenge,” 287.
6 Lai et al., “Industrial Land Development in Urban Villages in China,” 185–94; Guo, Xiao, and Yuan, “The Redevelopment of Peri-urban Villages in the Context of Path-dependent Land Institution Change and its Impact on Chinese Inclusive Urbanization,” 466–75; Pan and Song “Transformation and Upgrading of Old Industrial Zones on Collective Land,” 1–12.
7 Anderson and McFarlane, “Assemblage and Geography,” 125.
8 Deleuze and Parnet, Dialogues II, 69.
9 Müller, “Assemblages and Actor-networks: Rethinking Socio-material Power, Politics and Space,” 28.
10 Ibid.
11 Anderson and McFarlane, “Assemblage and Geography,” 125.
12 Ibid.
13 Martin and Bezemer, “The Concept and Planning of Public Native Housing Estates in Nairobi/Kenya, 1918–1948,” 609–34.
14 Cerceau, Mat, and Junqua, “Territorial Embeddedness of Natural Resource Management,” 29–42.
15 Ibid, 32.
16 Ibid, 32.
17 DeLanda, A New Philosophy of Society.
18 Woods et al., “Assemblage, Place and Globalization,” 289.
19 Ibid, 293.
20 Woods, “Assets and Assemblage in the Global Countryside,” 169–72.
21 DeLanda, Philosophy and Simulation.
22 Marks, “Commercialization without Capitalism,” 61.
23 Chan, Transformation of Shunde City.
24 Xue, Yan, and Johnson, “Local Government, Enterprises and Individuals,” 211–22.
25 Shunde Statistical Bureau, Basic Situation of National Economy in Shunde District in 2014.
26 Yang, Chen, and Xu, “Evolution of Rural Industrial Land Use in Semi-urbanized Areas and its Multi-dynamic Mechanism”.
27 Wickramasinghe and Bali, “The S’ANT Imperative for Realizing the Vision of Healthcare Network Centric Operations,” 53.
28 Essex and Brayshay, “Vision, Vested Interest and Pragmatism: Who Re-made Britain’s Blitzed Cities?” 417–41.
29 Chan, Transformation of Shunde City.
30 Chen et al., Shunde 40 years.
31 Liu, “The Dynamics of Local Upgrading in Globalizing Latecomer Regions,” 880–93.
32 Ng, “Township and Village Enterprises and Rural Environment in China,” 531.
33 Yang, Chen, and Xu, “Evolution of Rural Industrial Land Use in Semi-urbanized Areas and its Multi-dynamic Mechanism,” 515.
34 Lin, “Rural Reforms and Agricultural Growth in China,” 34–51; Xu and Lei, A Study of Urbanization of the Rural Shunde County of the Zhujiang River Delta.
35 Xu and Lei, A Study of Urbanization of the Rural Shunde County of the Zhujiang River Delta.
36 Yang, Chen, and Xu, “Evolution of Rural Industrial Land Use in Semi-urbanized Areas and Its Multi-dynamic Mechanism,” 515.
37 Chen et al., Shunde 40 years.
38 Fitzgerald, “Autonomy and Growth in China,” 7.
39 Yang, Chen, and Xu, “Evolution of Rural Industrial Land Use in Semi-urbanized Areas and its Multi-dynamic Mechanism,” 513.
40 Shunde Chronicles Office, Shunde County History, 196.
41 Ibid., 197.
42 Pan, Ng, and Xu, “Reassembling Local-regional Industrial Networks towards Sustainability.”
43 Ng, “Township and Village Enterprises and Rural Environment in China,” 533.
44 Chen, Ni, and Situ, A Territorial Planning Study of Shunde County.
45 Yang, Chen, and Xu, “Evolution of Rural Industrial Land Use in Semi-urbanized Areas and its Multi-dynamic Mechanism,” 513.
46 Garnaut et al., China’s Ownership Transformation.
47 Li, “The Prelude to Government Reform in China?” 29–66; Ding, “Who Gets What, How?” 33.
48 Liu and Yang, “Strategic Coupling of Local Firms in Global Production Networks,” 454.
49 Ibid., 455.
50 Deng, Ownership Reform.
51 Tian and Zhu, “Clarification of Collective Land Rights and its Impact on Non-agricultural Land Use in the Pearl River Delta of China,” 192.
52 Po, “Redefining Rural Collectives in China,” 1610.
53 Tian and Zhu, “Clarification of Collective Land Rights and its Impact on Non-agricultural Land Use in the Pearl River Delta of China,” 192.
54 Ibid., 192.
55 Liu and Yang, “Strategic Coupling of Local Firms in Global Production Networks,” 451.
56 Yang, Chen, and Xu, “Evolution of Rural Industrial Land Use in Semi-urbanized Areas and its Multi-dynamic Mechanism,” 513.
57 Shunde Statistical Bureau, Shunde District Statistical Yearbook 1992–2002.
58 Po, “Redefining Rural Collectives in China,” 1611–2.
59 Tian and Zhu, “Clarification of Collective Land Rights and its Impact on Non-agricultural Land Use in the Pearl River Delta of China,” 192.
60 Huang, Zhou, and Wu, “Spatial Performance Evaluation of Inefficient Industrial Land in Shunde District, Foshan City,” 92–7.
61 Tian and Zhu, “Clarification of Collective Land Rights and its Impact on Non-agricultural Land Use in the Pearl River Delta of China,” 199.
62 Tian, “Land Use Dynamics Driven by Rural Industrialization and Local Land Finance in the Peri-Urban Areas of China,” 117–27.
63 Huang, Zhou and Wu, “Spatial Performance Evaluation of Inefficient Industrial Land in Shunde District, Foshan City,” 95; Pan and Ng, “Implementing Industrial Ecology in Regeneration Activities,” 6.
64 Tong, Towards Open Countryside.
65 Liu and Yang, “Strategic Coupling of Local Firms in Global Production Networks,” 451.
66 Liu, Li, and Ou, “Informal Ties in Industrial Cluster and its Impact on Technological Innovation,” 522.
67 Chen et al., Shunde 40 years.
68 Cong and Wei, “Studies on the Development Status of Industrial Park in Pearl River Delta under the Background of Land Austerity Policies,” 87–91.
69 Chan, Transformation of Shunde City.
70 Tian, “Land Use Dynamics Driven by Rural Industrialization and Local Land Finance in the Peri-Urban Areas of China,” 125.
71 Yang, Chen, and Xu “Evolution of Rural Industrial Land Use in Semi-urbanized Areas and its Multi-dynamic Mechanism,” 517.
72 Liu and Yang, “Strategic Coupling of Local Firms in Global Production Networks,” 455.
73 Huang, Zhou and Wu, “Spatial Performance Evaluation of Inefficient Industrial Land in Shunde District, Foshan City,” 95.
74 Chan, Transformation of Shunde City.
75 Liu and Yang, “Strategic Coupling of Local Firms in Global Production Networks,” 455.
76 Fu, Market Strategies of the Furniture and Garment Industries in the Pearl River Delta, China.
77 Tong and Yan, “From Legal Transplants to Sustainable Transition,” 199–212.
78 Liu, Li, and Ou, “Informal Ties in Industrial Cluster and its Impact on Technological Innovation,” 524.
79 Liu, “The Dynamics of Local Upgrading in Globalizing Latecomer Regions,” 888; Chan, Transformation of Shunde City.
80 Fu, Yang, and Li, “Market Imperative and Cluster Evolution in China,” 251.
81 Interview with an environmental consultant, 2 December 2019.
82 Interview with a Shunde village official, 5 March 2020.
83 The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), Implications of Mainland Processing Trade Policy on Hong Kong.
84 Huang, Zhou and Wu, “Spatial Performance Evaluation of Inefficient Industrial Land in Shunde District, Foshan City,” 95.
85 Interview with a township official, 20 January 2021.
86 Kostka and Zhang, “Tightening the Grip,” 769–81.
87 Ibid.
88 Schoon, “Three Olds,” 105–22.
89 Chan and Yang, “Institutional Escape and Embeddedness in the Cross-Border Production Networks: Relocation of Chinese Electronics Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises to Vietnam,” 675–92.
90 Interview with a township official, 20 January 2021.
91 Pan, Ng, and Xu, “Reassembling Local-regional Industrial Networks towards Sustainability.”
92 Zeng, How Do Special Economic Zones and Industrial Clusters Drive China’s Rapid Development?; Knorringa and Nadvi, “Rising Power Clusters and the Challenges of Local and Global Standards”.
93 Woods et al., “Assemblage, place and globalization,” 293.
94 Ibid., 289.
95 Pan, Ng, and Xu, “Just Sustainability, Actor-networks and Environmental Politics in China,” 988.
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Notes on contributors
Mingmin Pan
Dr. Mingmin Pan holds a PhD. in geography and resource management from the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Centre for Civil Society and Governance at the University of Hong Kong. She has been studying rural restructuring, brownfield regeneration and green transition in the Pearl River Delta region of China.
Mee Kam Ng
Prof. Mee Kam Ng is the vice-chairman of the department of geography and resource management, the director of the Urban Studies Programme and the associate director of the Institute of Future Cities at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.